Back in September 2007, IT Reviews took a look at the Ricoh Caplio R6, then touted as ‘the world's thinnest digital camera'. Despite the prefix, the Ricoh R8 definitely doesn't fit into the same family.

At first look, the Ricoh R8 is a little on the clunky side: measuring 1.2mm x 58.3mm x 26.1mm, it has a boxy appearance and a rather hefty-looking 4.95mm to 35.4mm lens. However, this has its benefits in that it sits nicely in the hand and it also houses a generous 2.4-inch LCD screen at the rear. To aid grip there's a rubber section underneath the right hand area, although it should be noted that the top surface of this coating easily rubbed away, quickly making the camera look tatty and old beyond its age.

The start-up time of the Ricoh R8 is impressively quick, if a little violent sounding. By turning the mode dial you can set the shooting mode to either Auto, Video, ‘My1' and ‘My2' personal modes and Scene, but once this has been chosen the individual scene modes or preferences have to be accessed and altered using the Menu button on the back of the camera. You then use the directional Adjust button (that also doubles up as a quick shortcut to features such as White Balance if you're using the personalised ‘My' functions).

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All the usual Scene modes are here including Landscape, Sports, Nightscape and Zoom Macro, but it's the Skew Correct Mode that really makes this camera stand out from the crowd. This feature automatically crops and straightens a photo of a rectangular object like a message board, to make it look as if it were shot squarely - and works well, giving accurate results.

It's possible to carry out this procedure using the generous amount of editing features available in the Playback menu too. Select the Menu button whilst you're reviewing your shots and you can carry out a number of quick fixes including basic resizing, rotation and trimming, as well as some picture quality tweaks like Level and White Balance Compensation.

There's no viewfinder on the R8, so all shots have to be composed using the LCD monitor. This doesn't normally pose a problem but in bright, sunny conditions it can be difficult to review the shots clearly. The monitor itself suffers a little from a slight cyan colour cast, which makes everything seem a little cooler than it is. This does pose a problem if you want to make use of the Level Compensation feature, especially as it's hard to trust what you're seeing on the screen, so it's generally worth leaving any hardcore colour edits for work on your computer.

The Ricoh R8 10-megapixel camera runs on a rechargeable battery that's included with the camera and this has a good consumption record of around 270 pictures. There's also 24MB of internal memory, which means you can get around fifty 1280 x 960 shots on your camera if you've run out of space on your SD Memory Card.

Although the Ricoh R8 isn't really the best camera to get if you like to experiment with manual settings, you can still retain some control over your shots with the Shooting menu. This is nice to see on a camera of this calibre as it means you get far more for your money than just a simple point-and-click, giving you room to grow as you get more confident with the camera's handling.

The focus areas can be altered between Multi AF, Spot AF, MF, Snap and Infinite to ensure that your shot is sharp and, similarly, Exposure Metering can be set to either Multi, Center or Spot. To experiment with colour you can either tweak the Color Depth or set your White Balance to a choice of seven different options including Auto and Manual. If you're intending to shoot in low light the Shooting Menu also gives you the chance to set a Slow Shutter limit and turn on a Camera Shake Correction feature.

Quite unusual for a compact camera is the ability to experiment with bracketing, for exposure, white balance and colour control. Unfortunately, shots on the R8 lack colour depth in auto mode, so it's best to resort to a ‘strong' colour setting. Unfortunately too, there is quite a large amount of noise, even at the lowest ISO setting, meaning that smaller detail suffers in a shot.

Image size options are good, however, and if you're interested in square format photography there's a handy 1:1 option that will save you from having to crop your images at a later stage.

This isn't the sexiest compact camera in town, neither is it the cheapest. But if you can get past the outer aesthetics, the Ricoh R8 is a reliable, swift and, more importantly, intuitive model to use. Although it doesn't have the most durable casing, and easily wears unless you treat it with kid gloves, there's pretty good scope for putting your own spin on the Auto shooting features. This isn't a camera for you if you want control over shutter speed and aperture, however, and noise levels are high.